Which way is this ride heading?
The Wall Street Journal / NBC Poll released on March 3, 2009 was the best look we have gotten since election day as to what the American people are thinking and feeling. We have as regular Americans been inundated with news coverage of the incredibly negative statistics showing the health or in this case the sickness of our economy. We have talking heads that like to now refer this to the Great Recession, as if a regular recession wasn’t bad enough for them. Every morning we are overloaded with home foreclosure news, unemployement figures, retail sales, automotive sales, bank failures and more and more and more. With this kind of endless assault on the American people one would expect the most recently released polling numbers to be sliding, granted there wasn’t much room to continue to slide after the last numbers released before election. At that time 12% of voters polled felt the country was headed in the right direction, and a whopping 78% said the country was headed in wrong direction. Just to put some numbers for comparison here, the DOW was at 9387.61 on 10/13/2008, the date last poll was released. The view was not pretty and we hadn’t seen the worse of it yet. Market continued to drop as confidence was still riding low. But something strange is in the air now, the new poll numbers show that 41% believe we are on the right track now, which we haven’t seen that high level of number since 2004. That is an increase of 29 points which is a increase of 300% from its low just 6 months ago. The number of people who believe we are on the wrong track as gone from 78% in October 2008 down to just 44%, a decrease of 34 points.
What do these numbers mean to the average working American who is struggling to pay his bills and is worrying about his kids going to college or school, not much, but it might help boost his confidence in our economy and it will help the leaders continue to get bills passed through congress. With a 60% approval rating on WSJ/NBC and a Gallup number in the mid 60’s, the American public are willing to trust this new president has a vision and has a grasp on what is needed to fix this economy. When asked how the President is doing handling economy he holds close with 56% approval on WSJ/NBC.
For our esteemed congress men and women, the numbers are showing improvement, not the same stratospheric numbers as the President, but their job approval as gone from 12% in October to 31% now, which is a number they haven’t seen since March 2007. It seems that more people are answering NOT SURE when asked about their performance, as the country waits with baited breath for Obama’s proposals to be passed through the congress.
Here are some very telling questions from the WSJ/NBC poll:
1. In looking at what President Obama is doing in terms of his leadership and plans for the country, do you feel more hopeful or more doubtful?
• More hopeful ………………………………… 67
• More doubtful ……………………………….. 28
• Mixed (VOL) ………………………………….. 4
• Not sure…………………………………………… 1
2. Do you think the Republicans in Congress have opposed President Obama’s policies and proposals more because they are standing up for their principles OR more because they are trying to gain political advantage? **
• More because they are standing up for their principles ………. 30
• More because they are trying to gain political advantage……. 56
• Some of both (VOL) ………………………………………………………. 10
• Not sure ……………………………………………………………………….. 4
3. Do you think that the recently passed economic stimulus legislation is a good idea or a bad idea? If you do not have an opinion either way, please just say so
• Good idea ……………………………………. 44
• Bad idea………………………………………. 36
• Do not have an opinion …………………. 15
• Not sure ……………………………………….. 5
As you can see from our Gallup Daily Tracking poll the President has enjoyed support ranging from 61 to 67 just this last week. As days goes by and the first 100 days are counted down, here are a few hubdub markets to keep in mind.
